Widower to Widow
by bisexualcharliedavis
Summary: Jean learns that she and Charlie do not have as different pasts as she might have thought.


/A wee experiement in character backstory. Not canon compliant, but not specifically noncompliant either. Minor character death, canon compliant character death, drunkenness, minor spoilers.

In the entire time Jean has known Charlie, she has never once seen him get drunk. He just didn't seem the type, if she was honest. He liked the odd drink, and wouldn't pass up a glass of wine with dinner, but he'd never been specifically drunk. She'd even seen him turn down a drink or too if he thought he was going to go over the edge. Certainly not drunk off his ass like he was now.

"You're up late." She said, taking the wine glass out of his hand. He sniffled loudly and put up no fight. His fingers were cold and clammy, and if she's being honest, he looks down right miserable.

"I'm drunk." He slurred, looking at her with one eye open.  
"You certainly are. I thought you were going out with Rose."  
"We broke up. Again." She put the cork in the wine bottle and put it into the cupboard, unsure how to proceed. Charlie and Rose have been on an off for ages, and frankly, she could see Charlie wasn't coping with it. It just wasn't her place to tell that that at this point in their lives, they weren't right for one another.

"You're a widow."  
"I am." She said, surprised, slightly annoyed, and not sure where exactly that was going to go. While she didn't much feel like talking about her widowhood to a very drunken thirty something, the question seemed very loaded.  
"From one to another, when do you feel okay to love again?" Another?  
"You're a widower?"  
"You're deaf? Sorry, that was mean. Yes."  
"For how long?" She demanded, wondering if he was having her on. Charlie wasn't old enough to be a widower, surely. But there were lots of young widowers out there. She was a window herself much younger than him.  
"Nearly…." He stopped to draw maths on the table with his finger, but gave up quickly. "How long ago was 1930?"  
"Twenty years." Charlie put his face in his arms.  
"Nineteen years."  
"You would have been what-"  
"Eighteen when I got married, yeah. You don't need to tell me that I was a fuckin-" He paused, hiccupped into his arm "-Stupid kid. I know I was. But she was pregnant, what else was I gonna do?"  
"How old was she?" Jean asked, trying and failing not to be too judgmental. Not really of Charlie, she was in the same position, was she not? Mostly, her judgement is sad that someone had made this sweet boy sign away his youth.  
"Twenty…." He paused, and sat up to count on his fingers. "Four? Five? No. Four." Despite her attempts, she felt mad that a grown woman would take advantage of a teenager.  
"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to her?" Perhaps she was prying now, but she just wanted to know. Charlie was closed about his home life, and being open about it…Well. It peaked her interest.  
"She had a seizure, hit her head on the counter at her mothers house and died." He said, incredibly bluntly. "Her first ever. When they sectioned her brain, it turned out she was a ticking time bomb.  
"That's awful."  
"Yeah, it was. But it also happened a long time ago. Hell, we weren't even in love."  
"You weren't?"  
"I was eighteen, fuck would I know about love?" He spat love out like a dirty word.  
"And your…Child?"  
"She's…Ah damn. She's really beautiful. Here's a piece of gossip for your sewing club, I'm not really calling my mother every night, I'm calling my baby girl. My Bunny. That's what I used to call her when she was little. My little bunny girl. 'Cause she always carried this fat stuffed rabbit 'round with her." Charlie said, sitting back and wrenching his wallet out. He opened it, and offered it to her. Jean feels like a voyeur, looking at something he'd deigned to keep secret.

But she was really beautiful. She was probably eighteen years old, and wearing her school uniform. In the corner was scrawled 'Dad, good luck in Ballarat', Charlene' and the name is signed with a beautiful flourish. She certainly had Charlie's pale eyes and chin, but high cheek bones that certainly belonged to her mother. In her heart, she felt a stab of jealously, that Charlie had been in the exact same situation as her, and he'd been allowed to keep his baby girl. And then proceeded to feel awful about it, nothing that happened to her, was Charlie, his wife, or Charlene's fault.

"I didn't date anyone really before Rose. I was too busy working, you know? I wanted to get her out of the fuckin' gutter where I grew up. But she's nineteen now. I thought it would be okay now, and I tried it, I tried so hard, but I'm not sure I can. Maybe that's why I picked a girl I knew would break my heart, because I wanted to sabotage myself?" That was something she could relate too.

She closed the wallet and looked at her drunken lodger. She felt sick, like she was taking advantage of him. He wouldn't tell her this normally, and it was wrong of her to pry into his private life. He'd tell her when he was sober, as well as good and ready.

"Back to your question." Charlie looked up, so his eyes were visible over the top of his arm. "There's no set time when you'll feel okay to love again. It too me longer than you. If you really want it, you'll get there."  
"We weren't even married for a year, but whenever I sleep with someone else, or I think I might be falling in love, I just think about how I promised to love her forever."  
"And maybe you will. But you can love other people too." She said, taking him by the arm and helping him to stand. "Nothing wrong with that. Don't you think she'd like you to be happy?" He didn't reply, but sniffled again.

Charlie seemed unwilling to walk, but dragged himself up to his bedroom with her. She put him down on his bed, and let him toe off his own shoes. He reminded her of a giant child over a drunken man.  
"I don't know how to love like a husband." He whispered. "But I love you. And Lucien, and Mattthew. And Rose. Like a family…A better family…" After making sure he was on his side, she decided not to reply to that last comment.

"Sleep well, Charlie." She said, unable to help her mothering urge to tuck him tightly into bed and sit with him, rubbing his arm until he fell asleep. She turned his lamp out, and wandered back into the kitchen where the picture of Charlene is still sitting on the table. She put it next to the phone. Maybe she'd talk about meeting this young lady when he was sober, maybe not. She didn't want to pry.

She went to her room, changed into her nightie, and crawled into bed. She didn't find sleep easily. 


End file.
